The path of letters: literature and politics in the 20th Century in Bahia

Abstract

This article discusses the relations between politics and literature in the 20th Century in Bahia. It highlights the trajectory of “men of letters” and the importance of the newspaper editorial rooms as places for intellectual and literary formation. It focuses on Bahian writers works that used political issues as main themes in their Romanesque narratives in the second half of the 20th Century. In Bahia, literary men played important roles in party politics. Writing practices undertook a political role by mediating the conducts of people who were involved in debates on collective or individual interest issues and emphasizing the tensions and its developments. In this article, history, literature and politics are associated to the concepts of individual and collective memory, imaginary and power.